First loaves of bread

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: First loaves of bread

David (Gromit) you started a really helpful thread here with your bread. Thanks.

Elizabeth: Thanks for the earlier advice. I'm going to buy a garden sprayer tonight just for bread. I always spray bottle the heck out of my kitchen oven but didn't know I can do that in the WFO.

Jay, I've been reading some of your posts and you've got great info on bread baking. Questions though:

What exactly is BP? I still don't get it Is that your SD starter mixed with equal flour and water?
Is it better to fill your oven with multiple bread doughs? I get the impression baking is better with a loaded oven and that requires less steam injected (or am I mis-reading your posts?)
Any suggestions of what to include in a new Sour Dough Starter. My last SD starter (RIP) from years back I made with organic grape skins and potatoes. I read a post of yours suggesting 1 Tbs of Pineapple juice for acid.

It's been years since I read Reinharts BBA. I'll have to re-read his book tonight. But what wine goes with hydration, autolyse & wild yeast strains?

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Dino!

I will try to answer without getting TOO longwinded!

BP is Baker's Percentage. Commercial bakers and lots of more "advanced" bakers like to work use BP to describe their doughs (pizza folk do to). In BP talk the total weight of flour is 100 percent or 100. A BP 100 starter is equal wts of flour and water. I keep mine that way for two reasons. First, I like the flavor (level of sourness - lower BP starters tend to be more sour). Second it makes batch calculations easier (though I actually use a spreadsheet so...)

I will use grams in this example for simplicity....

If I want to make sourdough with a baker's percentage 70 (chosen for convenience of math. BP 70 doughs can be hard to handle!). Suppose I want to make 3.4 kilos of bread. The final dough would contain 2000 grams of flour, and 1400 of water (which is 70% of 2000). Salt would be 40 grams (2% of 2000) (and yes I technically just made 3.44 kilos but the salt is in the round off).

So I know what my final dough should contain. IF I am using commercial yeast I have just figured out what to mix! With sourdough I do the expansions I described, and would simply subract the flour and water in the preferment (which normally be equal for me because that is the way I USUALLY do it) and I can easily calculate how much water and flour to add to the preferment to get the desired hydration.

The key to BP is it makes scaling easy and gives you an idea of what the dough will be like. The following are for bread flour. Down around BP60 is pretty stiff but lots of pizza dough recipes are in that range so they won't be too sticky. Around BP66 the dough starts becoming a bit harder to handle. By 70 you probably need some experience and practice. By BP 80 you are in ciabatta heaven, Really delicate dough! Super sticky unless you flour the hell out of it. You will see people refer to BP when they are talking about how wet the dough is.

People have very mixed experiences creating starters. In Europe it is usually easy. Here in the US a bit harder. It seems to be easier to get rye starter going than whole wheat or white (in about that order). Use unbleached flour if you use white.

While getting going the weights aren't very critical. Just mix say 1/4 cup of flour with about an ounce of water or better water and 1 1/2 teaspoon of pineapple juice for acid. The acid helps stop a bad bacteria that has been pretty common in US flour in recent years (from what I hear!). You can probably let it go a full day between feeding. To feed throw away half and add back about 1/8 cup of flour and a half ounce of water with a 1/2 t. of pineapple juice. Leave it out at room temp.

If it doubles real quickly the bad bacteria have taken over. Chuck it and increse the pineapple percentage. Otherwise it should begin bubbling a bit in 2-3 days and start being more vigorous daily. It can take weeks, however to really be robust and ready to bake with. Minimum is about a week and that is unusual. Once it is bubbling pretty good I would start weighing the additions so it gets equal water and flour and it will quickly become BP100.

NOTE: It may smell a bit bad during the first few days but...once it starts bubbling fairly well the smell should become yeasty and the bad smell should begin to go away as the yeast and good bacteria take over.

Good luck! (It's Alive!)
Jay

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

Bakers,

I baked again this weekend. I took a different route, but I ended up in more or less the same place: too tight a crumb. Before I over-fermented; this time I think I might have over-proofed. After the proof, the loaves were bulging out of their forms; they released nicely from the baskets and looked good at that point. They deflated about 30% upon slashing, and in the oven only regained about half of the height that they lost. What have I done?

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

If they deflated that much when you slashed them, I'd say you over proofed. Probably not by too much, though, if you managed to get them out of the form ok.

Keep at it. You'll get it worked out. You're doing sourdough, too, and that's different in different seasons. As the temperatures fall, you'll find the proofing times change some again. Just remember that bread's a living thing right up to the time it hits about 140F all the way through!

Do keep at the same recipe until you get the feel for it, as well. Once you get the hang of the one, the others are easier. Until you get to rye, which actually has to be a tiny bit underproofed to get good rise in the oven...

Sorry, I'm rambling. I'll shut up now.

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Gromit!

I am right on with Elizabeth! Only thing to add is I MUCH prefer to be underproofed to over. A lot of things happen when you overproof.

Before the peak there are more sugars in the dough the beasties (yeast) are feeding on. The sugars will caramalize in the crust and give you a prettier, darker crust. By comparison overproofed eventually goes sort of gray and pasty. Second the yeast are active and the amount of gas in the dough is rising (Isn't that surprising! )) But what is notable is that when action peaks, gas production declines and gases start leaking out of the dough. Then when you slash there its leaking too fast to make up the losses and you get flatter bread.

Slashing and baking a little early tends to give "rip" at the slashes where the dough tears as it expands. A lot of baker's like that look. I do so I go a bit early.

WRT tight crumb...Probably low hydration. What was your BP (if you know)? (or tell me your exact recipe and I will tell you). Could be you worked it too late in the process (you tend to want the last hour and a half or so to be untouched with wild yeast. If you are a bit rough with the dough in getting it from its form to the peel that can hurt you too. Could be ???? lots of things...

Hang in there. If bread were nearly as easy as it seems many of us would not be so detail oriented!

Good news is it still eats good!
Jay

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay,

My BP is a bit of approximation because of a non-exact ratio of water and flour in my starter. The BP would be in the neigbourhood of about 65%, but that is before factoring in 1/2 cup of wheat germ added to 965 grams of KAAP. What BP do you shoot for?

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

Oh. If you don't weigh your flour and water in the starter, you'll have a problem with the BP. 2 oz starter gets 2 oz flour and 2 oz water, for example, the way I do mine. Some people like a drier starter, but I do not.

You ought to post the recipe the way you're doing it and let Jay figure it out. (besides, we can swipe a recipe that way! )

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

Elizabeth,

This recipe is from Nancy Silverton

12 oz. Starter
1 Lb 2 oz Water
2 Lb 2 oz White Flour
1/2 cup of Wheat Germ
4.5 teaspoon Salt (I cut back on that just a bit)

Yes, I am annoyed too that it is not in grams or BP.

This = 53% hydration without the starter. I have been feeding the starter by measuring rather than weighing--a scoop of water and a rounded scoop of flour. It should be in the neighbourhood of 157% hydration. I think that works out to about 65% hydration for the recipe without taking the germ in to account.

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hey David,
I started out with the Silverton book, but I mostly use Hamelman now. He shows everything in grams and makes it very easy to scale the recipe and to see the hydration percentage...

Drake

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

I would need to see a picture of the crumb to really comment with any real meaning and even then it might not mean much!


The wheat germ will pull water out so you were probably down around 62-3% on an effective basis. With bread flour that is pretty stiff. With AP its not far from normal so the dough should have been pretty easy to handle. You can get open crumb with AP with wetter dough but 62% feels okay. With AP I like to mix it and let it sit longer. Bread flour has more gluten and holds the gases better if well developed so you can be a bit more aggressive with it.

Your dense crumb shouldn't be a fxn of the slash though it may have some influence. Nor should being a bit rough be the answer though being rough can't help. My bet is you did too many folds too late in the process.

Pane Pugliese is a good boule for AP. While it is formally a commercial yeast bread I use my sourdough and get a near Pugliese. It likes to be fully mixed early. So I knead it pretty thoroughly and let it sit about 30-45 minutes and fold twice, then about another 30 minutes and one more fold. I am still about 2 to 3 hours to forming with my wild yeast. When I use commercial yeast I do no more than two fold events at about 30 minutes. Then let it sit for about 45 min to an an hour before forming. BUT that is a fxn of how much yeast I decide to add. I have been overproofing sometimes at that schedule (hot summer!) so... it is not a guarantee. But I am getting pretty good open crumb and a nice soft white bread for bruschetta that browns and toasts great.

Back to your bread...if you used too many folds too late in the process you may have overworked the dough a bit and gotten a tight crumb as a result. You also might have worked it too much in forming - not an uncommon problem. Back to Pugliesi. I have also done it almost no knead and gotten holes that were too big! There's a balance between kneading/working and rising and crumb.

If you don't knead enough and don't distribute the yeast adequately you tend to get a few big holes. If you don't poke it down or fold after a half hour to hour (depending on the yeast) you tend to get a few big holes. If you time it right and fold and form boules at the right point and are GENTLE you get better crumb. But gentle is tricky for you also want a tight skin and that means some handling.

Kind of rambling but hopefully you get the idea.
Jay

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay,

The crumb of these loaves was more or less the same as what you see in the 1st picture of this thread.

Do you have any pictures you can post of what you like the crumb to look like for this type of bread? I found a nice picture of an oven's worth of loaves that you posted in the Photo Gallery, but no "inside the loaf" pictures.

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi David!

You understand BP. You got the 53% right! Treating wheat germ like flour I get 62.5 for the whole loaf.

Everything makes sense. The expansion is about 4.5X (about 1520 grams of flour and water added to 340 grams of starter). The salt was high at 2.26 % of flour (assuming table salt) so cutting that was good. 2% is norm. I usually do 1.8 to 1.9%. Nothing wrong in any of that.

You seem to indicate it rose good so yeast and all should be okay.

A little wetter will help. But you may need to elevate your dough handling skills (but you need them for wet pizza dough anyway!)

I just realized all my bread crumb pictures are on my old computer. Will try to get them uploaded.

I usually make a slightly tight crumb sourdough. It will be mainly smaller holes but will have a range of holes up to 3/8 inch or so (and sometimes a few bigger). Most holes are under 3/16 inch. I keep the holes small to make it work for bruschetta so olive oil will generally stay in it. The crumb on my sourdough will be whitish - and not glassy like a great baguette.

I make really open hole baguettes (almost air sometimes) and occasionally I deliberately up the size of the holes in my boules but...I like bruschetta!
Jay

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

I mostly use Hamelman now.

OK, that is two recommendations for Hamelman now. I have added it to the b-day wish list alongside Reinhart. Actually, I'm not sure if that was a recommendation or a dare from Elizabeth. Something about exploding heads...

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

Not a dare! It's a great book. I really like a lot of the recipes. It just takes some getting used to the way the ingredients are laid out. I screwed up a recipe once by adding too much stuff. I did fix it, but I do sort of get tired of having to fix things... (of course, I could slow down and pay better attention too!)

I also wish it had better pictures- there is a section of color pix, but the bulk are illustrations. My SIL is a designer of sorts and doesn't like the paper as much as Reinhart's!

I think of it as a textbook kind of thing, really. It isn't as friendly and reassuring as BBA et al, I guess. But it's a great book to have, no doubt, or I wouldn't have it! My friend with the exploding head was just totally inexperienced with anything not made in a bread machine, and probably out of a box at that.

Jay, I love bruschetta too! My tomatoes are finally coming in, so we're about to be eating it by the pound...I wish I could get my hands on some really fresh olive oil in the fall to make fettunta.

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Elizabeth!

My tomatoes have ended for the summer. I REALLy need to get my next plants in the ground but the heat and drought are pushing them back. Good news is I can probably get tomatoes until January!

For fresh, great oil, try Yellingbo. It is supposed to be pretty much available everywhere in higher end groceries. It is Australian and IF the fall 2009 crop (our spring) should be hitting the stores pretty soon. Yellingbo is unique in that it (at least the higher level oils) have a pick date as I recall. If you can't get Yellingbo the better California oils are usually really fresh.

I am fortunate enough to have three European olive trees. Hopefully we will get enough next year to have our first "house" oil! Even if it is mediocre it will be "good"! (Texas oils are pretty good but aren't getting out of the state much yet!)

I have two favorite breads for bruschetta - my regular bread flour sourdough boules and my pseudo Pain Pugliese based on AP. The latter is kind of fun as I alluded earlier. The first trick is that there is no such thing as "Pain Pugliese" in that it is a broad range of breads made in Pugliese. The recipes vary so much you get a headache. I make mine with my bread flour starter. AP flour for all the added flour. I simply make a typical first expansion over night. Then take it to BP 66 to 68 for the dough. I usually add about 1 t. per loaf of instant yeast to accelerate the proofing and to reduce the soften the sourdough effect so you get a sort of sourdough commercial yeast bread. Part of the fun of Pugliese is that it is NOT traditionally slashed. You poke fingers well down into it to give it room to expand. When it expands it typically creates whorls of flour on the darkened crust. Really distinctive. After YEARS of making my sourdough I resisted it at first but while helping an Italian restaurant refine their bread, I have grown kind of fond of it - for the right purpose!

Bake On!
Jay